Development

Sustainers: more efficiency and stability, shorter pledge drives

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After a decade, sustaining members have given four times as much, net
Everywhere you look these days, there’s a different message on the state of the economy: the Dow is up, the Dow is down, hiring is up, the recovery is jobless. If anything is certain, it’s that the outlook remains very uncertain. It’s a genuine blessing, therefore, that sustaining members can put a little more certainty into your station’s life. Since Minnesota Public Radio began its sustaining member program in 2007, it has revolutionized the way we generate financial support from our audiences. Sustaining members take a step beyond those who commit to a year of monthly gifts on their credit card or through their bank.

Development

Accounting problems cost WNET $1 for every $7 in federal grants

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WNET’s accounting problems have cost it $1.96 million out of a series of production grants totaling $13 million, following  a two-year federal investigation of the big New York station’s grant accounting. Federal lawyers and the licensee — Educational Broadcasting Corp., now officially known as WNET.org — signed a settlement in which the station gave up 15 percent of the grant money:

$950,000 to be paid back to the feds for inadequately documented or prohibited costs, and
$1,015,046 that the station has spent on the productions but agreed to give up. By the time of the settlement, the growing sum of unreimbursed expenses had cut a $7.8 million hole in the station’s financial fabric. To keep federally backed productions going, the nonprofit continued spending money on them but stopped asking for reimbursements. Robert Feinberg, general counsel, said it was a voluntary decision by the station: “If we have done something wrong, we didn’t want to compound the error.”

“It’s definitely been a drain,” Feinberg said.

Development

Gov’t officials critical of nonprofit Friends units

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Nonprofit fundraising arms of the state-owned network in West Virginia and the school-board-operated stations in Miami are under fire as public officials scrutinize longstanding financial relationships that underpin their operations. West Virginia Public Broadcasting and Miami’s WLRN-FM/TV, like many other public radio and TV operations owned by state and local governments, rely on sister nonprofits, often called Friends groups, to raise as much as 40 percent of their annual budgets. These private 501(c)(3) nonprofits around the country differ in many details but typically have separate governing boards and sometimes their own staffs.  

A major reason for their existence is also cause for the complaints: They give pubcasters more flexibility and speed in purchasing and contracting than government procedures usually permit and they can pay for programming or other mission-related activities that the stations couldn’t otherwise afford. Friends of WLRN, for example, was able to contribute funding to continue the station’s editorial partnership with the Miami Herald when the newspaper’s new owners were cutting costs in 2008, according to Janet Altman, chair of the friends group.

Development

Mobile giving a ‘no-brainer’ for TAL postcast audience

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It’s not the best way to collect big annual gifts from station members, pubcasting fundraisers agree. But This American Life’s producers confirmed that giving-by-texting among their many devoted listeners holds considerable potential. Beginning last November, appeals for $5 donations included in four of the show’s weekly podcasts brought in $142,880 from 28,576 listeners, as of April 15, according to Seth Lind, production manager. To donate, a podcast listener simply texts “LIFE” to 25383 and TAL receives a $5 donation, minus fees, paid through the giver’s wireless phone bill. The vast majority of the text gifts to TAL were sent during the campaign’s first month, but fans continue to respond.

Development

Giving by texting: So far, you’d LOL at net proceeds

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Americans’ response to the post-earthquake crisis in Haiti demonstrated the power of technology-enabled charity, but public broadcasters who have tried raising funds from mobile givers say it’s been a money-losing proposition so far. A handful of public stations have tried various ways of soliciting donations by text messaging. Philadelphia’s WXPN asked attendees of last summer’s XPoNential Music Festival to chip in $5 each via text message. In San Francisco, KQED made appeals during campaigns tied to Earth Day programming and 2009 year-end giving. Twin Cities Public Television made pitches during pledge drives, animated 10-second spots and e-newsletters.

Development

To save journalism, click ’n’ donate?

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Now a dot-com called Kachingle is starting to roll out an online service designed to make voluntary support easy for even the most Internet-dazed, pledge-averse, marginally committed and low-budgeted Medici to virtually toss coins, or dollars, to reward the online media they love and appreciate.

Development

‘Sloppiness,’ not wrongdoing, led to probe, says WNET chair

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The leadership of WNET said a federal investigation into the station’s use of federal grants totaling almost $13 million is wrapping up, and the organization is financially sound. “There was sloppiness as opposed to real wrongdoing in terms of our accounting systems, which has been addressed,” said James Tisch, chairman of the WNET Board, in an interview. The station has hired a new chief financial officer and created the position of executive director, financial control, to ensure compliance with federal grant rules, said Neal Shapiro, president. “We have a new CFO. We have a new compliance person to make it very clear we take all these rules very seriously,” Shapiro said.

Development
Student hugging principal at graduation

Why fund a whole doc?

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Few docs as substantial as The Principal Story, which airs on P.O.V. Sept. 15, are funded in full by a single angel, but this one was. The Wallace Foundation didn’t choose to cover the whole cost to make independent producers’ lives easier, though the grant did that.

Development

In Pittsburgh, members come first in credits

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Viewers like you — by name — have literally moved to the front of the line in underwriting credits at WQED in Pittsburgh. Since mid-August, a Mary Jones or Joe Smith of Anytown, Pa., who donated as little as $40 to the station, is mentioned ahead of major corporations or donors providing hundreds of thousands. That better reflects the overall importance of viewer contributions to the TV/FM licensee, said Deborah L. Acklin, g.m.

At a time when audience contributions are proving more reliable than many corporate and state government funders, the WQED credits and new ones from PBS are emphasizing the role of viewer-donors. The new national multiplatform credits package that PBS began feeding to stations in August focuses on the viewer as “Explorer” branding concept (Current, June 23). PBS head Paula Kerger seemed to approve of WQED’s idea after a Pittsburgh reporter mentioned it during her July appearance at the Television Critics Association tour in Pasadena, Calif.

Development

Prenups: precautions for prudent producers

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Too many couples were splitting up before the offspring came along. Or they lived together grumpily, keenly aware they shouldn’t have had that second date. Ellen Schneider and her crew saw it was time for an intervention. Schneider’s San Francisco company, Active Voice, has published a 25-page booklet to turn things around: “The Prenups: What Filmmakers and Funders Should Talk About Before Tying the Knot.”

Development

Austin City Limits rides its brand downtown

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Austin City Limits is a hot commodity based on a cool brand built over 33 years on PBS. In two years it moves its entire production site downtown in the Texas capital city to a cornerstone 2,500-seat theater in a $300 million redevelopment.

Development

Finding Explorer

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The kinds of people who like new experiences, enjoy scanning expanded horizons, want to see things from varied perspectives are the people most likely to be PBS viewers, says Margaret Mark.

Development

Fiscal year-end layoffs include 10% of PBS staff

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Swamped by the recession tsunami as they prepared for the new fiscal year, public broadcasters at PBS headquarters; WQLN in Erie, Pa.; two Wisconsin stations and Colorado Public Radio cut budgets to keep their noses above the red ink.Falling by the wayside are established services, including the weeknightly newscast for Delaware viewers broadcast for 46 years by Philadelphia-based WHYY-TV and the local reports on the radio reading service for the blind operated for 16 years by WMFE-FM in Orlando, Fla.Troubled stations typically reported revenues that were down across the board, in underwriting, corporate donations, membership and state government support. With no higher ground for refuge, PBS officials told staffers June 11 that 45 positions, including some vacancies, would be eliminated. That’s about 10 percent of the network’s staff. PBS is struggling to close a $3.4 million deficit anticipated for fiscal year 2010. Spokeswoman Jan McNamara said the job cuts and other measures already adopted will eliminate about half of that shortfall.

Development

On the Media apologizes for Infinite Mind lapse

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On the Media, the NPR-distributed weekly press review, released a correction last week apologizing for what it called a “lapse in journalistic judgment” in preparing its November 2008 report about the public radio show The Infinite Mind.